| 22
April 2004
Northbank
Communications is Fastest Growing PR Consultancy in UK 288% PR Fee Income Growth and Leap to 130th in PR Week League
Table
Northbank Communications
is celebrating being the fastest growing PR consultancy in the
UK as published in today’s PR Week League table. Northbank
achieved 288% growth in PR income and entered the PR Week Top
150 league table for the first time at 130th place.
Science communications specialists, Northbank Communications,
was formed as a new brand in November 2002, following the merger
of Charles Consultants with STMP Marketing Ltd. The Top 150 2004
league table, which is based on 2003 figures, thus represents the
first entry after the merger.
Commenting
on the achievement, Sue Charles, CEO said, "Charles Consultants was a small PR start up. By integrating
with STMP to form Northbank, we have built a full service offering
for science-based companies, with a strong PR service at our core.
Most clients in our sector – biotech companies for example,
need corporate, financial, scientific and medical PR all rolled
into one seamless communications service, in order to attract the
attention of investors and potential big pharma partners."
Charles has brought
strong PR leadership to Northbank – she
is noted for having launched Dolly the Sheep to the world, setting
the cloning debate off on a positive and informed basis. As well
as PR, Northbank offers design and marketing services, including
web and corporate materials design.
"These days, creative PR campaigns often need information-based
web sites and technical factsheets to back up the interest that
media comment has created. There is less of a divide between PR
and other communications disciplines than there was. Indeed it
is our ability to integrate campaigns and come up with the right
solution for our clients that sets us apart from PR purists." Charles
explains.
Pembridge Partners,
the business accelerator, is an investor in Northbank and is
working with the management team to drive its
growth. At present Northbank has three offices, in London and Congleton
(near Manchester) in the UK and Munich in Germany. "Our clients’,
capabilities and ambitions are global," states Charles. For
example, we represent Affymetrix Inc, a NASDAQ listed biotech star.
For them we are engaged to outreach to European media across Financial,
Corporate and Trade, in particular in the UK, France and Germany.
We also represent smaller biotechs here in the UK, such as Solexa,
an exciting Cambridge-based company whose systems will enable the
coming personalised medicine revolution - for them, awareness on
a global stage, including the USA, is important.
In the financial year (ending Sept 2003), Northbank added 20 new
clients. In recent weeks Northbank has grown its PR resources by
adding three new hires at account executive level and will be adding
a further account manager in early May. Three of the four new staff
have PhDs, making Northbank a hotbed of intellect as well as new
PR business.
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